Thursday, June 25, 2009

drive-by readings: Secret Warriors #5

well, this is what the S.H.I.E.L.D. gig turned out to be. Nick Fury goes into paranoia overdrive, manipulates a few heroes to take out Latveria, gets disgraced and quits, comes back with new super recruits to repel the Skrull Invasion (like that helped), sees his old outfit decommissioned and rebuilt into Norman Osborn's public army, and now all this time he's been fighting a regenerated Hydra. if he got paid by the hour, that's USD35M @ $1K/hour in back pay, not counting medical benefits. he's still underpaid by Wall Street standards.

speaking of renumeration, how is he gonna pay the salaries of some twelve hundred ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. loyalists, whom he just deployed to attack a former base to retrieve their helicarriers. of course he knows this is also to draw Hydra into the open, thereby multiplying their opponent-to-good-guy ratio like around 10 to 1. make that 20 to 1 'cause Hydra's guys are kinda superpowered too. hazard pay? what hazard pay? its easy for Fury to say "if it was gonna be easy, it wouldn't be any fun now, would it?", because he has the goddamn Infinity Formula running through his veins. prick. maybe we should change the title of the book to Nick Fury: Secret Warrior, as Daisy and the gang are only shown in one panel all issue.

i'm guessing Stefano Caselli's strength is not splash pages that need some detailed backgrounds. he's done a great job with Avengers: The Initiative which netted him this gig, and i like his action shots, although sometimes the faces look alike from one to the other, giving you the sense that it was rushed. otherwise, this is still a solid issue (and series overall), with Marvel making good use of its rich library of (albeit perpetually-resurrected) characters.